Shorts
by littledarkangelhippie
Summary: Ichihime Drabbles.
1. Fire

**Disclaimer****: I do not own _Bleach_.**

Ichigo is fire, spreading quick across her world and leaving scars behind in his wake, of which cannot be mended by anyone but him—his searing fingers, lips, tongue, eyes—

His touch is a hot poker tearing down the length of her spine, spanning wide over the small of her back, sliding slowly up to trace her rib cage with his palms. It leaves her trembling, short of breath, disoriented and hazy. His mouth whispers wordlessly, a litany of promises they both know he'd sooner die than break. When his tongue presses soft against the line of her collarbone, she feels her nerve endings sizzle. When he brushes his lips along the curve of her throat, a flame snaps through her, escapes from her mouth in a gasp.

Ichigo is fire, leaving imprints of himself on her skin, the shape of his hands and their long fingers, his very essence lingering at the edges of hers.

He flares, hotter and hotter, a storm rushing up to break—_quick, quick, quick—_everything that ever had any meaning—_snap, snap, snapping _apart until there's nothing left anymore and a part of her is still afraid she'll be brought down with it, except—_except—_

Ichigo is also gentle, a candle flickering against her mouth, her ears, her cheeks, her heart.

His kisses fall across her face like a light rain, calloused fingers sliding over every plane and dip and crevice of her body, a slow burn rising up inside of her. Every touch brings with it an apology they both know he has no business saying, a sigh into the curve of her shoulder.

She melts underneath him, grasping for air, his face, the unruly mess of hair atop his head. Her thoughts are a disjointed wreck and her words never quite reach the point of coherency but Ichigo is also kind, and he smiles warmly down at her, eyes aflame with things she's not yet ready to understand.

And when he kisses her, he doesn't pour himself into her all at once. He doesn't overtake her, more a gradual roll, constantly expanding, filling her up to the very brim and then overflowing out beyond even the stretch of her fingertips.

Ichigo is tender, boiling, a muted fire just outside her reach—just a split second from snapping—_quick, quick, quick—_to bring her down with him.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**A.N.****: Short little drabble to make up for my inactivity. Sorry, guys, I've been really busy with work. **

**I'm gonna upload a bunch of drabbles that I wrote for IchiHimeMonth on Tumblr. Hopefully that'll make up for it some.**

**Let me know what you think of this one, though. Please review.**


	2. Love At First Sight

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Bleach_.**

The lights flaring around them cast eerie shapes across the asphalt, shadowed creatures rising and twisting the longer she stood frozen in her place. And even as their sharp claws reached for her feet, she did not move a single muscle. For the first time that entire night, she felt her heart squeeze in something akin to hope, a fluttering in her middle. While the feeling itself was a mute afterthought beneath the fear still laced tight around her sadness, she still found herself clinging onto it desperately.

He couldn't have been older than her by too many months, but his dark eyes spoke of things she herself still did not understand completely. The furrow between his thin brows was deeper than she'd seen any kid their age have, reminiscent of the one his father—the tall doctor rushing out from the clinic—sported on his gravely face. A shock of bright hair, bleached out by the flashing sirens swiping across them, sat wild and ruffled atop his head, as if he'd just been woken up.

He did not break eye contact, watching her watch him from the entrance of his family clinic.

The moment hung suspended, still in the midst of the chaos overturning her entire world. An anchor as she weathered a storm within herself.

"Ichigo," his father's gruff voice cut between them, the opened edges of his white coat shielding their eyes from the sight she had already ingrained into her mind, "take her inside."

This snapped the boy to attention, running over to her quickly. When his hand, warm and cool at the same time, took hers, she felt the air tear from her lungs—a dam, breaking, inside of her. He tugged her toward him as he took a step back, keeping his eyes on her. They were hard, solid, steady as he guided her slowly back toward the clinic. He somehow seemed to understand that she could not move on her own, and allowed her to use him as reference, something to mold herself into for the time being until the storm was over.

For some reason, she wasn't sure it ever would be. It raged on, persistent, roaring in her ears and shredding through her marrow. It leaked over into her muscles and caused a terrible trembling through her limbs, welled up at the corners of her eyes and blurred everything out but him.

But him, who was solid and steady and strong.

Bypassing the clinic for another entrance, he helped her into a kitchen chair and draped a quilt over her shoulders, wrapping it up under her chin. Here, underneath the fluorescent lights, his eyes were a chocolate brown and his hair was a fiery orange color. He did not leave her side, only moving into the nearby kitchen to brew something to drink and retrieve some sweet bread to share.

"I know how it feels," he murmured, shattering the silence abruptly. He slid a cup toward her carefully as he sat down beside her. "I know you think it'll never stop hurting, but...it'll get easier." He looked away and then back at her, and she was altogether breathless finding the cold shell he'd held hid a sad, vulnerable boy.

His eyes were swirling with the very storm she felt still spiraling through her veins, a freight train shooting unpredictably down a set of tracks not yet ready for its coming, a beast's mouth glinting from the darkness and a sword poised over their heads—his eyes were a reflection of everything weighing down on her shoulders, clenching around her beating heart, snapping down her universe.

The moment hung suspended, a calm not quite a calm. A moment of reprieve while everything she'd ever known and loved crumbled underneath her very feet.

When he reached over to press the corner of the quilt up under her eye, she realized she was already crying—a dam, breaking, inside of her. She squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth, letting it pour out across the space between them.

He silently took in everything, neither flinching nor shying away from the force of her emotions spilling out from her. And although he did not touch her past the quilt or the very ends of her tangled hair, she could still feel his understanding wrapping up around her like a comforting embrace—a gentle ocean swelling up around her wild rivers, an anchor as she let herself drown.

And when she opened her eyes to look at him, the hope squeezing around her heart gave a hard clench and the fluttering in her middle expanded to fill the spaces her sorrow left behind. His chocolate eyes stayed locked on hers, hands both warm and cold rested lightly over hers.

The storm seemed to almost subside.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**Set after Sora's death, if you're wondering.**


	3. Promise

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Bleach_.**

She is hesitant to touch him, all stuttering breaths and halting approaches, treats him as if _he _is a porcelain doll, a glass rose, a fragile spiderweb fluttering in the breeze. Her eyes speak of a simple fear, the one he's certain is reflected back in his.

_I don't want to hurt you_.

And every doubtful brush of her fingers against his skin has a purpose, a reason for being there—or no reason at all. The soft pads of her fingers press soft as a feather along a bruise, a cut, a bleeding wound—or flawless flesh already sealed together; no need for her gentle healing.

He supposes his fear is much more intense, as he can't bring himself to touch a single hair on her head. His is strictly necessity, brief and unfeeling—except for the crashing of his heart against his chest, the ice cold sensation he gets when he realizes he could so easily snap her feeble wrist in one hand and squeeze her life by her throat with the other.

He never would. The thought of a life without Inoue Orihime is a dark one, one of sorrow and emptiness. One not worth living.

He doesn't know how many times he's been torn from his sleep with that nightmare running like ice through his veins, thinking that she won't be there the next day, that his insolence and incompetence will be the death of her.

That even he, with his stubborn will and power, cannot keep his own promises.

_I will protect you, _he thinks—every day, every minute, every second he spends with her, watching her silken hair coil soft against her rosy cheeks and her wide eyes sparkle up at him. She can undoubtedly hear it, feel it against her chest the same way he does.

Orihime has always been really good at guessing his emotions, and he figures by now she's attuned to them the same way he is to her. And while he'll never be as good at it as she is, he will always try to be.

_Always_.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**A.N.****: These are all set in random times. I'll put the prompt names in the chapter titles.**


	4. Hurt

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Bleach_.**

And just like that, her whole world came crashing down around her.

The silent but concrete realization that he was not invincible slammed into her at full force, knocking her breath away and leaving behind a ringing emptiness that tore right at the center of her heart. Her throat tightened up and her eyes prickled, yet she was nowhere near tears.

It was one thing to see Ichigo bruised and bleeding, and an entirely _other _matter seeing him still—_broken_. Her senses grasped at any small sign of movement, _something _to indicate what she knew to be wasn't actually.

The expansion of his fractured ribs, a twitch of his bloodied fingers, some light in his unseeing eyes—nothing.

Nothing.

And just like that, Orihime was very suddenly reminded of how weak she was.

It choked its way out of her, scraping up and out of her mouth in a mute sob, a trembling breath drawn up too close to be a sigh or a prayer or a curse. Something inside of her was crumbling away at the foundation, her very purpose in life fading quick before her very eyes, fragile hands turned open toward him in quiet, senseless offering, as if he would take them in that frozen moment—his motionless body crumpled up on the ground upon blood-soaked sand, once white as bone, once empty.

Inside, she was screaming. Great, big, shrieks and shouts twisting up like a hurricane. Lost before it could reach the surface, a drowning victim not strong enough to reach the top.

Not strong enough to save the man she loves.

And inside, she was dragging his body into the circle of her arms, cradling him into her chest and burying her face in his hair, all matted with sweat and dirt and _something red—_

And inside, she was stitching him back together again, building him back up, breathing the life back into his eyes with her lips pressed full against his—the only thing she ever wanted, just once to let him know he was the only thing that ever made her feel alive again and if only she could do the same for him—

And inside, their roles were switched. He would fight, he would win, he would move on and live again and she—would be a simple memory long gone before her last breath.

A dull ache suppressed and forgotten before it could sting, before it could scar—and this, this would leave her heart ripped in two, three, four—nothing.

Nothing.

To know her only strength was not enough to drag him back was the sharpest knife. She could pour her very spirit, her soul, into this one task—the only task that would ever matter—and it would still not be enough to revive him.

His eyes continued to stare lifelessly into the distance, her own hands reflected back, like mirrors, pools.

It was an immediate thing, the fading of her hope. It shrunk to the very corner, the very bottom of her heart, and trembled in fear of the moment they both knew would come. The end of everything she'd ever cared about.

But it had the loudest voice, hope, and it came out in endless tears and whimpers and ugly sobbing, shaking her violently at the shoulders and bowing her over him in a crooked, helpless arch.

_Please don't go. I need you_.

And if she could, she would turn back the clock to the very moment he smiled at her, his eyes so warm she could feel herself melting and his voice so gentle she could almost feel it touching at the strings of her heart, and beg him to go home. To _leave, please, this is only going to hurt you in the end—_to remind him of his little sisters, waiting for him at home, of the future stretching ahead of him.

A future she won't have any part in.

And if she could, she would take every time he's ever promised he'd protect her and press them up tight against his chest, all that resolve and conviction translated into _rebirth_. She would take every fiery grin, every wild glance, every strand of happiness he's ever felt and meld it back into his veins, pump it back into his heart—_life;_ his happiness is _life_.

And if only she could take all of that, take all of herself, and wrap him up in them, she would do it in the blink of an eye.

But there, the whole world has come crashing down around them, the realization that Ichigo is not invincible and she is not strong enough and she will never see his smile, his warm eyes, his wounded heart ever again.

There, the glaring and concrete fact; nothing had ever hurt Ichigo more than her.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**After Ulquiorra killed Ichigo and Orihime couldn't heal him. Sorry, if it's too sad.**


	5. Strength

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Bleach_.**

She looks at him as if he puts the stars in the sky.

As if he can do no wrong in her eyes.

And if it were possible, Ichigo would surround himself with a million Orihime's, just so that he could feel that level of acceptance from all sides—but it isn't. So he gladly contents himself with simply immersing himself in her, the only Orihime that has and ever will exist.

The only one that ever should.

He folds her into his arms, fitting her against his chest and tucking her under his chin safely. Even quiet moments beg for his protection and he will never deny it that, if it meant keeping her this close. Her hair spills down her back and over his arms, a sheet of silk drenched in the scent of wild flowers and sunshine.

And if it were possible, Ichigo was sure Orihime was the manifestation of sunshine, all warmth and brightness and beauty—and she may very well be. Her smile curves upward and her eyes reflect a fire back at him that reaches right down to his very soul.

And she smiles at him as if he painted the clouds right into the sky.

As if he'd crafted them just for her.

He figures he might as well have, for they both meld into the earth as easily as she fits within his arms.

"It's a strong one," his father comments idly one day, "your love."

And Ichigo may have snapped at him to shut up or maybe even aimed a kick at his face, but he never dared deny it.

Because he can still feel her fingers still laced through his for hours after their parting, her head rested against his shoulder, her hair tickling his cheek, her lips pressed soft against his throat. He can still feel his heart twist and dance and jump in his chest, his stomach clench as a wild fluttering flared from the inside up. He can still see the way her eyes shine sweetly when he closes his own and her lips curve gently as he sighs to himself.

And when she looks at him, she looks at him as if he is the world, the sky, the very stars far beyond their reach.

She looks at him as if he will not fall.

And when she's in his arms, he feels like he never will.

And when she's smiling at him, eyes shining all shades of bliss and warmth, he feels invincible—like nothing can ever touch them.

So when his father describes theirs as "_strong_," Ichigo will never dare deny it, because when he's with Orihime he feels as if he is—the strongest there will ever be.

When he's with Orihime, he feels as if nothing bad will ever happen.

Like she holds the sun right in her hands, erasing all the darkness within him.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**A happy one.**

**Alright, one more.**


	6. First Kiss

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Bleach_.**

Ichigo has always been a quick learner, and a visual one at that. A simple demonstration is all he needs and he can execute something pretty well. But not a single chick flick in the world could have prepared him for this; the moment he leans over to kiss the girl and the moments that will surely follow it.

He should have known, those were professional, well practiced actors who were guided into the moment by other professional, well practiced people.

Ichigo is no professional, and no where near practiced.

And, as fate should have it, neither is she.

If anyone had had the thought to tell him these things were rarely ever perfect to any degree, he would have appreciated it greatly.

Presently, as he leans toward her, he forgets to remember how much shorter she is than him, and his lips land on her forehead instead, missing his goal so completely his face flares red. She blinks up at him, cheeks painted a sweet pink, and offers a reassuring smile, mouth forming around a gentle, "Goodnight, then," as she misinterprets the kiss as a goodbye.

This is how he learns closing his eyes is best left until after their mouths connect.

He catches her by the shoulders before she can turn to step into her apartment, hurriedly saying, "I messed up, let me try again." She, not knowing what he means and yet retaining her patient kindness, allows him to turn her back toward him and waits for him to gather his bearings. Her expression is curious, polite, and she fiddles with the hem of her coat until his hands move from their place.

He settles for cradling her face between his palms, tilting her head back as he leans down once more. His thumbs press into the darkening color on her soft cheeks and he feels his lips begin to part. He pauses a second too long when her little tongue darts out to wet her lips, and meets her eyes quickly. "What?" he demands, suddenly very flustered.

Her hands come up to clutch at the front of his shirt, fingers curling into the material tight. She tugs lightly. "Keep going," she urges gently.

When his nose bumps hers, she laughs and leans in toward him, as if wanting to share her happiness. He nearly straightens to pull away, the embarrassment too much for him to bear and fearing his face will burn off at this rate, but she holds firmly. She rises up on her toes to close the space between them, slanting her head slightly to the side to avoid his nose this time, and pressing her soft lips to his.

And not a single chick flick in the world could have prepared him for that.

Blood boiling, he grasps a handful of silken hair at the back of her head and pulls her closer, wrapping his other arm around her to press her against him. Her arms coil around his neck and she curves her spine a certain way to accommodate him.

It isn't perfect. He knows it's too wet on his end and he's putting too much force into it, kissing her hard and deep, and he knows he's pulling her hair and that his trembling fingers give away how scared he really is. He knows her lip gloss is smearing over both their lips and her nails are digging into the back of his neck enough that it hurts a little, and that her toes are only barely touching the ground at his point.

But her lips are soft and she takes him in so easily, so naturally, he feels like they're molding together somehow.

He doesn't want this moment to end, no matter how close their teeth have been to clicking together or how their tongues don't quite dance so smooth. No matter how awkward and inexperienced they are.

And then her back hits the wall, and he's pressed rather inappropriately against her, and he knows it won't be right to push this any further than what they have.

They have time, he decides. No need to hurry.

Reluctantly, he extracts himself from her, lowering her down carefully to the ground and smoothing down her hair back into place. Her lips are red and her face is ablaze, she's breathless and her hooded eyes slowly widen back to normal. When she laughs this time, he laughs with her.

"Goodnight, then," she says again, tucking her bangs behind her ear and rubbing the heel of her hand against her cheek.

When he kisses her forehead this time, it's intentional.

"Goodnight," he murmurs, stepping back to let her retreat back into her apartment. She hold his gaze, nearly tripping over her own feet, and smiles one last time before shutting her door. He waits a few seconds before turning and heading back to the stairs to head home. He licks his lips of her gloss, and feels himself smile quietly.

In all honesty, he doesn't regret a moment of it. As cheesy as it sounds, it was perfect enough as it was.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**This is the last one. Hope you enjoyed.**


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